Dear friends in Christ Jesus,

Today’s first reading gives us an image of the Kingdom of Heaven which we require to aim at every moment of our life. The second reading today comes from the Letter of James and recommends us all to be patient for the coming of the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is at hand and it can come at any time.  It is a kingdom for which we must live now, even though it has not yet come. The Gospel according to St Matthew brings us back to John the Baptist, who in fact became the voice of the One who redeems the world from the bondage of sin.  We had the image of John the Baptist preaching repentance on the second week of Advent, but today we have the image of him sending his followers to ask Jesus:  Are you the One?  This is a question that each of us wishes to ask from time to time: Are you the one? 

We want our faith to remain full of life and also deeply personal.  We never want our faith to become just one other aspect of our lives.  We want to give ourselves completely to the Lord because of our knowledge of His deep and personal love for us. 

Are you the one? At the end of the Gospel, Jesus makes clear to all who listen:  the most important reality in life is to belong to the Kingdom of God.  John the Baptist is the greatest born of women but that counts for nothing unless he also belongs to the Kingdom of God.  This is a comparison of the reality of this earth with the reality of the heavenly kingdom.  In the Kingdom of Heaven, we are all completely in the hands of God and will not be striving to be one greater than the other.  We shall be completely ourselves and completely full of the love of God, with only the desire to live in love with Jesus our Lord.